Abstract

Sunita Mishra* and Varisha Khan

Street food is an inexpensive and deserving source of dietary intake; it’s highly noticeable consumption in developed and developing countries. The aim of this study was to rate the proximate analysis of the nutritional status of street food consumers in Lucknow, it’s an urban town. The study given a questionnaire to 100 individuals constituted by randomly selected in Chatori Gali near 1090 women helplines (street food lane) in Luck now. Nutritional Status was based on the number of food groups consumed in the previous 24 hrs. To 3 months in the participants, 40% were male and 45% were female, (the majority of them were between 19 and 22 years of age. 6% Children (Age group-1 year to 12 years), 4% old age (50+ to +70). It was found that 41.1% of the young people ate street food 2-3 times per week, whereas 24.3% were found to eat it every day from 100 street food consumers in street food in Lucknow city. The nutritional status of the respondents was assessed with the physiological issues and the use of Body Mass Index (BMI) which was classified as underweight (<18.5 kg/m²), normal (18.5-24.9 kg/m²), overweight (25.0-29.9 kg/m²) and obese (≥ 30.0 kg/m²). Dietary Diversity Score (DDS) ranging from 0 to 9 was constructed from a 9-food group model. The mean age of the respondents was 38.5 ± 12 years, majority (85%) was male and 61.7% were self-employed. About 42% spent half of their income on food while 15% spent more than four-quarters on food. More than 65% consumed street food daily, 854.1% indicated street meal as the most preferred street food snacks and beverages were preferred by only 15%. Majority (75.0%) consumed street foods in the afternoon and about 20% in the morning. Five out of 10 respondents had low DDS, about one had medium DDS and 10% had high DDS. The nutritional status indicated 28.2% to be overweight while 5.1% and 8.2% were found to be underweight and obese, respectively. A notable association was found between the dietary diversity and nutritional status of the respondents. This study discloses that street food consumers in the urban town of Lucknow, N were either overweight or obese, mal nourished and their nutritional status was very low.